


Charity? Never Heard of Her

by blackice



Series: OK? OK [1]
Category: Tiger Cage 2 (1990), 本命年 | Black Snow (1990)
Genre: Fix-it for both movies, Gen, He Just Doesn't Know It Yet, M/M, Minor Injuries, POV Alternating, Period Typical Attitudes, Quanzi is Arlong's boyfriend, Self-Indulgent, in that Arlong is a raging liberal and Quanzi is a repressed beeb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-17
Updated: 2017-04-17
Packaged: 2018-10-20 07:08:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10657470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackice/pseuds/blackice
Summary: Arlong did not have any medical expertise whatsoever, except in treating shallow scrapes and bruises. To say that he had leapt before looking in bringing this Quanzi home would be an understatement.In other words, Arlong saves Quanzi.





	Charity? Never Heard of Her

**Author's Note:**

> my kink for niche fandoms and pioneering new ships needs to stop. to unsuspecting readers, I have no idea how you got here but let's be real: I have no idea how I got here either.
> 
> Some Context:
> 
> Arlong (TC2, Donnie Yen) is an obnoxiously young retired police officer from Hong Kong. TC2 ended ambiguously enough that I felt justified in dragging him to Beijing.
> 
> Quanzi (BS, Jiang Wen) is a recently released inmate from one of China's labor camps who went through a lot of Shit. He deserves a good boyfriend.
> 
> edited for the last time 4.29.17

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Arlong did not stay in Hong Kong after the entire Triad affair was complete, after Mandy had gotten them clean of the multiple charges of homicide and theft. Mandy wanted them to stay together, room with Tak until the nightmares had left her (and him, though his terrors were fewer than hers) alone, but Arlong no longer wanted to be with Mandy.

Tak understood, almost. “She’s a great girl.” He was fishing again, legs swinging off the pier and the fishing rod’s line cast far out to the horizon. Arlong took a seat beside him and carefully did not think about drowning.

Instead, he pointed a finger at Tak’s unshaved jaw. “I don’t want—I don’t want to hear this coming from you.” Because it bore reminding, Arlong added, “Buddy.”

Unimpressed seemed to win out over many other emotions invading Tak’s face. “Mandy’s got some fire. You’re obviously burnt out. What’s the problem?”

Arlong rolled his eyes. “She wants a fellow victim to cry with.” He exhaled a long puff of smoke. “No thanks.” For a moment, he and Tak considered the sea and its lack of gullible fish. There was a reason he’d come here to Tak, and not just to explain his terrible handling of relationships. All he needed was a transitory opening. One Tak was not providing, the jackass. Arlong squinted at the choppy waters. “I’m leaving Hong Kong,” he announced.

“I was expecting you to say that thirty minutes ago,” said Tak.

“What?”

“Really. Thirty minutes ago.” Tak plucked Arlong’s cigarette from his mouth and stubbed it out on the wet wooden pier. “Your poker face is still awful. Where are you going?”

He took great pleasure in saying, “Beijing. It’s nice this time of year, right?”

Tak was silent for a long second, and Arlong waited for the predictable flurry of incomprehensible shouting. Tak was pretty good at shouting without meaning anything. “Arlong,” said Tak eventually. “What the _fuck_.” He covered Arlong’s mouth with the back of his hand, a habit after many months of Arlong retaliating by means of licking or biting Tak’s palm. “No, be quiet. Think about this for a minute, okay? _What is going on in Beijing_?”

The hand was removed.

Arlong counted out forty-five seconds, and then took a nebulous fifteen seconds to actually think about the move.

He paid as much attention to mainland politics as much as the next HK citizen. That was _maybe_ a passing knowledge of how fucked up Beijing was. Arlong could certainly hold a conversation about it, provided the majority of it was nodding solemnly and muttering choice phrases about the mainland in general.

“Nothing’s exploded yet,” said Arlong finally. “And hey, did you know I used to be a cop?” He lit another cigarette in front of Tak’s scowling face. “I had a buddy who used to trust me,” he complained.

“Beijing is a fucking time bomb,” Tak shot back. “What are you even gonna do? Be a cop again?”

Some weeks later, in the city limits of Beijing with only a backpack containing some extra cash, a change of clothes, and some kitschy knick-knacks, Arlong reflected that, well, maybe he should have had a better plan than ‘be a cop again, but better.’

-

Collapsed on the cold ground with only a pool of his own blood to warm him, Quanzi only vaguely registered the painful sensation of someone tripping over his body. He wasn’t exactly small, so the only logical reason was that the man was drunk or blind.

“Watch where you’re going,” said a heavy Southern accent. “Goddamn—who just lies—lies on the—wait.” Knees hit the pavement in a clumsy thud. Hands patted Quanzi’s shoulders, briskly mapping out a picture of his body before turning him over and finding the grievous injury. “Oh. Oh, _fucking hell_.”

“Language.” Quanzi groaned in reaction to sudden pressure on the knife wound.

“You watch your fucking tongue,” responded the stranger. “How long ago was this?”

Quanzi felt his thoughts uprooting and leaving him adrift. “Leave me alone,” he muttered, sluggishly shoving at the stranger. “I can’t pay you.” Another bolt of pain in his gut, one that caused Quanzi to shout wordlessly.

Above him, he heard a snort. “I’m a goddamn cop. If you pay taxes, of course you pay me.” A heaved sigh. “Alright, closest hospital is too far, but I’m not going to leave you so I can call for help.” Two hands, calloused and strong, guided Quanzi’s arms to hold down the makeshift bandage. And then—

He was being picked up. _He was being picked up_. Not even slung over a shoulder in a fireman’s carry, but lifted in a pair of arms like he was some newlywed bride. Quanzi, in a fit of adrenaline-induced embarrassment, wanted to die even more now.

The stranger lurched forward on unbalanced legs. Nevertheless, Quanzi was not dumped back onto the ground and given up as a lost cause.

“What’s your name?”

Black spots were cutting into his vision. Quanzi shuttered his eyes and grasped for his earlier feeling of outrage. “What?”

“Name.” The word sounded like it was being grinded out. “I’m Arlong.”

Reflexively, he threw the last of his strength into replying, “Quanzi.”  And then, Quanzi fainted.

-

Arlong did not have any medical expertise whatsoever, except in treating shallow scrapes and bruises. To say that he had leapt before looking in bringing this Quanzi home would be an understatement. “Please don’t die,” he said to the lolling head. “And please don’t have internal bleeding.”

The man was _heavy_. Arlong spared a thought to be grateful that Quanzi was not, unlike Arlong, built completely out of dense muscle. Otherwise, the walk from the theatre to his neighborhood would have been even more hellish than it was already.

Eventually, Arlong reached his door. He crashed Quanzi into it first, partially because his arms felt like they were about to fall off and partially because Arlong wanted to confirm there was still some life in him. “Hey. _Hey_.”

Quanzi wheezed quietly and did not wake.

Consequences of kicking his door down outweighed the benefits of getting Quanzi stripped and his wound dressed. So Arlong stood Quanzi on his own two feet, kept an arm wrapped around the thick waist, and fumbled with his key. Quanzi sagged forward onto Arlong’s shoulder, warm deadweight struggling for breath, dampening the skin of Arlong’s neck.

Dragging Quanzi was a job for two arms, and so Arlong kicked the door behind them shut.

He needed to go find his first-aid kit.

-

Quanzi woke in brief spurts, but he woke up ensconced in warmth each time. The stranger—Arlong, easy name to remember even in his hazy frame of mind—had missed all his lucid periods, but kept a glass of water perpetually filled halfway.

The fifth time Quanzi eased himself from sleep (uncomfortably hot now, instead of the comforting heat of before), Arlong was sprawled in bed under the covers next to him. Alarmed at the sight, Quanzi yelped and cringed away. He was too tangled in the blankets to really get anywhere, but his jerky motions caused Arlong to wake too.

“Go to sleep,” grumbled Arlong. “You’ve done it for the past two days, what’s one more?”

“I’ll sleep on the floor,” Quanzi blurted. “Sorry for taking up your bed.” He sat up and reached to pull the blankets from his legs when the burst of pain hit him; he grunted and curled in on himself.

Arlong’s arm shot out and a hand pushed down at Quanzi’s bare chest, hot skin burning his protests to dust. “Don’t pull your stitches. Just stay down.” In addition to this arm, Arlong slotted a leg between Quanzi’s and hooked an ankle over a calf, effectively caging all his limbs.

This was—this was too much. Quanzi squirmed. He stared at the ceiling, not yet willing to see a man’s face in bed next to his own. “I don’t—what? Where’d you take me?”

“You’re still in Beijing,” said Arlong, and a note of amusement was creeping into his voice. “You’re just in my home.”

“I’m supposed to report to my parole officer, and I’m in your bed,” Quanzi responded, aghast. Experimentally, he lifted the covers and let a cold draft in their pocket of warmth. When Arlong retaliated by plastering himself to Quanzi’s side, Quanzi hurriedly let the blankets drop in hopes of reversing this.

“ _I’m_ not sleeping on the floor,” Arlong said mulishly, stuck on Quanzi like a burr. “Go back to sleep, it’s too early for this.”

Quanzi squeezed his eyes shut and tried to think about other things. Things like his parole, Chazi, a pure gold necklace being tossed away without any gratitude—the hand cupping Quanzi’s waist drummed its fingers on his skin. “What,” he grounded out.

“Shut up,” muttered the other man, his accent becoming more noticeable with sleep. “I can hear you thinking.” After a minute, Quanzi began to hear Arlong snooze. The steady inhales and exhales were loud enough that Quanzi felt compelled to fall asleep too.

-

When Arlong woke of his own free will, Quanzi was still dead asleep. The water glass had been emptied again, however, and that meant Arlong was obliged to refill it. Again. He detached himself from Quanzi’s side and climbed over long legs to get out of the bed; Quanzi groused in his sleep and clutched the bedspread closer to himself.

He refilled the glass first, halfway as usual. Then he set about to making some kind of breakfast; one of the more charitable aunties (more charitable after Arlong had politely wiped out a local gang) had donated a pot of jok last morning. She’d spied Quanzi being dragged into Arlong’s home that first night, and after browbeating Arlong for information, the auntie had taken pity on Arlong’s obvious bachelorhood-cultivated culinary skills.

Arlong set it on the stove. It was half-empty, because Arlong had not dared to leave a stranger alone in his home, but also because Arlong did know how to cook other things and make the rice porridge last.

As the porridge heated up, the smell of ginger wafted in his small apartment even to the bathroom, where Arlong was running through his morning routine. He poked his head out, toothbrush sticking out as well, when he heard Quanzi moan.

Garbled through foaming toothpaste and the toothbrush itself, Arlong asked, “You okay?”

“What?”

Arlong made a vague gesture meant to encompass the whole of Quanzi’s body. “You okay?” he repeated, and he eyed the slow way Quanzi propped himself on his elbows and scowled in Arlong’s direction.

“That’s gross,” said Quanzi, and Arlong shrugged before ducking back into the bathroom to finish up. He came out to see a still shirtless Quanzi poking at the bubbling jok with a wooden ladle.

Now that he could see Quanzi in the morning’s light, Arlong felt something like attraction stir low in his gut. Quanzi was taller than him, by several inches, and softer in muscle definition. But there was strength in his shoulders and his chest.

Arlong wondered if he could pull off his own shirt and artfully lean against the door. As it was, Arlong just slouched against the door, arms crossed, and watched Quanzi stir the porridge and turn off the stove. He turned halfway and froze at the sight of Arlong grinning.

“You should go shave that thing off,” suggested Arlong, fingers pulling at some long imaginary beard. By the length of it, Arlong played at being Guan-gong. Quanzi’s three-day stubble was monumentally better than Guan-gong’s illustrious facial hair, but it made the man look more haggard than simply tired. “There should be an extra toothbrush in a cabinet. Somewhere.”

Quietly, and in a slur Arlong hadn’t thought possible even in the mainland, Quanzi spoke. “You didn’t have to stitch me up or bring me to your house.” Arlong absentmindedly took note of how white-knuckled the man’s grasp was on the ladle. “Thanks for that, but what’s your game?”

“My game?” echoed Arlong. He kept his distance. Quanzi appeared to still be in the midst of recovery, but years in the field had taught him the cornered animal was the jumpiest. “I’m a cop. I don’t just let people die on me if I can help.” His stomach made an obnoxious growl. “Are we going to keep facing off or can we eat breakfast yet?”

Quanzi flinched when Arlong took a step forward, and then seemed to tut at himself. He rested the ladle on the rims of two bowls, raised his hands in a mock-surrender, and said, “I’ll brush my teeth. And shave.” They circled each other like wild animals.

“Don’t die,” Arlong returned, half-sardonic but also half-begging. He’s invested a lot of time stitching up the knife wound, which was the consequence of a shallow laceration instead of the result of a deep piercing jab to his organs. “And don’t shower. I don’t have clothes that’d fit you.”

“Thanks,” grumped Quanzi, and then he hightailed it to the bathroom.

Arlong gave the man perhaps twenty minutes to perform his amenities and plot an escape. He hadn’t missed the widening eyes—wet eyes, like he’d been ready to weep—when Arlong let it drop that yes, he was a cop. Fortunately, Arlong’s bathroom was cramped and had only a very small window he used for ventilation.

Meanwhile, he ladled himself a generous portion of jok.

-

He had a game. Arlong definitely had a game. Policemen—especially self-proclaimed policemen who didn’t bother showing ID or a badge—did not pick dying men off the ground and save them by stitching them up without the intention to reap what they had sown.

Quanzi shaved with only fifty percent of his mind on the task. The mirror showed him to be a crumpled man still fresh from the labor camps, still semi-illiterate, still lacking any social graces in civilized company. On the bright side, when his cheeks were returned to a smooth existence, Quanzi looked as though ten years had dropped.

His stomach growled. Quanzi told it to shut up until he went back home to instant noodles, Arlong’s homemade rice porridge be-damned.

He cast his eyes around the small bathroom, directly adjacent to the only slightly larger bedroom, which connected directly to the kitchen and living room. It was a small apartment with little insulation and little ventilation; Quanzi abruptly shivered at the unforeseen chill drifting in from the open window.

Speaking of—the window was hardly the width of his forearm.

Quanzi was trapped. He did not appreciate this caged feeling, but he did not want to try and apprehend the ‘policeman’ waiting for his return. There was something devious about him and the innocent-like gummy smile, and it had sparked something devious in Quanzi’s mind. The kind of devious that Quanzi had buried years ago in favor of fitting in with his friends.

He wanted a shirt, badly. This was his one concrete desire other than to find and report to his parole officer immediately to discuss the legality of pretending to be a cop.

Arlong could not be any more than twenty-five. Quanzi felt firm about this assessment, given the man’s youthful looks and bullish attitude. He rinsed his mouth of the mint flavor of the toothpaste and steeled himself for more conversation.

This steeling of self was completely useless upon Quanzi opening the bathroom door to see Arlong, stretched out on the bed with a newspaper in hand. A bowl of porridge was on the bedside table.

Imperiously, Arlong patted the empty space next to him and the wall. “Come on, the jok’s getting cold.”

Persuaded more by the alluring scent of the porridge than Arlong, Quanzi obeyed and slid up the bedspread next to the man, sitting cross-legged and hunched over. He got passed the bowl and a low-dish spoon, and it was with relish that Quanzi consumed the ginger-laced jok.

-

 _Goddamn_ did Quanzi radiate heat. Arlong was tempted to scoot closer, maybe sling an arm around the other man’s shoulders and continue to pretend perusing the paper. His heating unit had broken down again, or the privilege of it had been revoked by his temperamental landlord, and Quanzi was making up for it.

But Quanzi had also mildly combusted at the sight of Arlong in bed with him (clearly now, Arlong could understand confusing the concept of hotbedding with the concept of taking sexual advantage of an unconscious person).

“You’ll have to take me to your parole officer,” he said offhandedly, and Quanzi froze mid-sip. Arlong turned a page in the newspaper and skimmed down the pictures. “So I can sign off where you were and all.”

“You’re really a cop?” croaked Quanzi, and Arlong obligingly shifted his weight away from the man.

“I’m the best damn cop to ever reenter the field,” Arlong bragged, and rightfully too. “Beijing is so lucky to have me sign on.” He hummed and folded his paper. “Maybe I can take over your parole, since your officer seems completely inept at taking care of you.”

Apparently, Quanzi was obliged to try and protect this officer. “He’s done his best given my circumstances,” he said in his slurred, gravelly voice. “You can’t blame him for the one night.”

“He should know better,” sniffed Arlong. “We’ll go after you finish eating.”

Quanzi went from devouring to savoring. His spoon scraped the ceramic.

“Should probably get to a hospital too.”

“I don’t have the money,” said Quanzi.

“Then you better not get stabbed again,” Arlong advised. “Or get sick.” He laid his newspaper aside and folded his arms behind his neck, the epitome of casualness. “You should get a second bowl. Aunt Bai made way too much.”

Slowly, like it pained the man: “I don’t need charity.”

“It’s not charity.” It actually was. “If I don’t eat all Aunt Bai’s jok, she’ll know, Quanzi. And then she’ll yell at me in front of the whole neighborhood.” This was true as well. Arlong could sacrifice the rest of his meals to eating the porridge and swear off it for the rest of the chilly season, or he could risk trashing what he didn’t eat. The former was just as distasteful as the second.

“There wasn’t a lot left,” Quanzi pointed out, and Arlong cursed the man’s observational skills. And then he cursed himself for staring at how Quanzi reached over him to place his empty bowl on the bedside stand, eyes flicking from the long arm to the soft broad expanse of his stomach. “I’m done eating.”

Arlong rolled off the bed and faceplanted into the floor. “Let’s go, then.” An impatient hand shoved at his shoulder.

“I need a shirt.”

Crushing the desire to turn and stare up at what would certainly be an annoyed, half-naked Quanzi, Arlong spoke to the wooden floorboards. “There might be _something_ in my closet that will fit you. Otherwise we’ll pick up a shirt from a trader’s stall, and you can throw it on before we go to the station.”

-

In the span of two hours, Quanzi found himself in the midst of a parole officer tug-of-war. One would think there would be two contrasting personalities fighting, but from Quanzi’s perspective, both Arlong and Officer Liu were blustering at equal levels of bullshit.

“A parole officer should check in every six hours,” said Arlong, dressed smartly in a police officer’s uniform that fitted him _far too well_. Quanzi hadn’t intended to watch Arlong dress, but while he was puttering away in the kitchen rinsing the now-emptied pot (they had compromised by taking a second helping each), Arlong had said something snippy that required Quanzi to level him a hard stare.

Poor choice of words.

Arlong had something snippy that Quanzi was obligated to respond with via a disdainful glare.

Quanzi’s disdainful glare had been powered for two seconds—seconds that were useless as Arlong was worming into his undershirt—and then had failed at the sight of Arlong’s muscled abdomen.

“What do you know, newcomer?” snapped Liu, still sitting behind his desk. Quanzi, like a school student, was seated in a chair facing him. Arlong paced back and forth like a caged animal. “He’s my charge, not yours.”

“You check in with Li Huiquan every morning,” Arlong said, changing tack. This was patently false; Liu meant to check in with Quanzi every month. “But when he was gone, there wasn’t a huge search for him, was there? You should have sent an alarm or gone on a manhunt. I wasn’t even aware that he had a parole officer to report to until his fever broke!”

Liu echoed, “Fever?”

Arlong stopped behind Quanzi’s chair, placed his hands on the back of it, and loomed. Something in Quanzi quailed at the blatant show of dominance. “Oh, I forgot to tell you. Your _charge_ was stabbed,” Liu flinched, “and was running a fever in my house for two days. I stitched him up.” Arlong stalked up to Liu’s desk and slammed his palms against the surface.

 “I should go tell management that you suck at your job,” finished Arlong. Liu stared up at Arlong’s face, presumably finding a fear of God; Quanzi stared at Arlong’s proud back and sank into the chair with a shaky exhale. “Hm? Should I?”

Quanzi did not pay much attention to the conversation after that, but he knew two things.

One: Officer Liu was intimidated by Arlong’s whip-like temper and words and easy command of power, even though Arlong had confessed he was recently employed by the Beijing police force after an early retirement at Hong Kong.

And two: Arlong was going to be his new parole officer.

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**Author's Note:**

> after three months of close interaction, Arlong tells Quanzi it's so much cheaper to be roommates, and also more convenient for checking in on parole. after six months, they become clueless boyfriends. a year into their meeting and Quanzi's release from parole, Arlong gets tired of celibacy and makes sure Quanzi's first time is as tender and awesome as possible.


End file.
